* Itheon Networks looks to help network managers tackle network problems
Network managers today worry about much more than speeds, feeds and network uptime. In addition to keeping the network humming along, they have also been tasked to ensure applications work optimally — for a distributed end-user community.
To do that, many network managers have become quite familiar with applications and the various performance issues that crop up when they run simultaneously over local and wide-area nets. Network experts usually call upon protocol analyzers to troubleshoot problems after the fact. But the WAN, more often than not, introduces performance challenges that force network managers to get to know a bit more about application development.
A British company getting its feet wet in the U.S., Itheon Networks, wants to help network managers do both: troubleshoot application performance problems, and help developers build applications better for networks. The vendors says with its two product suites it provides the sniffing capabilities of a Network General or Network Instruments with the WAN emulation tools one might get from Shunra. The company’s Portable Network Consultant (PNC) performs troubleshooting tasks, and its Itheon Networks Emulator (INE) Enterprise helps developers build more network-friendly applications.
Itheon Networks, based in Reno, Nevada, this week announced its INE for Windows professional product, which the company says provides “a network in a box.” The software installs on a server and application developers tap its features from desktops or laptops. Network engineers can also tap the server software to build specific scenarios on which application developers can base their work. The product promises to help application developers better understand network conditions and build applications to run smoothly — rather than risking an application causing problems in a production network.
“In the U.K. and Europe it seems different teams are responsible for testing and troubleshooting applications,” Itheon Networks CTO Frank Puranik says. “But in the U.S. we’ve seen more interest from network engineers in the troubleshooting and the testing and profiling product. Our products can work together or on their own.”
For instance, Puranik says data collected by PNC could be used to set up scenarios in INE by network engineers. He says the products address a life-cycle to management application performance on large distributed networks.
“Developers use data from the network team input into INE to get the application to work right on the WAN. The emulation tools show how well the application works in pre-deployment scenarios, and then PNC is used to diagnose problems on production networks,” he explains. “And all that diagnostic data can be plugged back into INE for future application development.”
INE Enterprise pricing starts at about $25,000 and PNC costs about $10,000 to starts. Pricing for the new application, INE for Windows professional starts at about $2,000 per seat.
